Converting camcorder footage to DVD for future iMovie projects

I have alot of older video footage on High 8 Tapes and Digital 8 tapes that I want to import and save the raw uneditted footage to a DVD, so I don't use up my hard drive space, but also be easily imported into iMovie at a later date.
I used iDVD's One Step on one of my tapes but found that when I put that DVD in my MAC to import the footage into iMovie it wasn't compatible and I would have to go through the time and hassel to convert that video footage.
The other way I tried was to import the taped footage into iMovie and then select all the clips and drag them into a project but that causes iMovie to error out and telling me to only add your best clips into your project. So going that route you have to select small clips at a time and that takes alot of time.
I guess to summarize my frustration, I want to find the easiest way to save this raw tape footage into a digital format that can then be imported into iMovie with out having to convert it or do a bunch of additional steps? Is there a way or a program I should invest in to help me with this issue.
Thanks

I guess to summarize my frustration, I want to find the easiest way to save this raw tape footage into a digital format that can then be imported into iMovie with out having to convert it or do a bunch of additional steps?
The simplest method is to divid your source files in segments which can then be burned to DVD as data. The size of these segments will depend on the size of the DVDs to which you plan to burn the material.
For instance if you captured your clips as DV with a total data rate on the order of 28.8 Mbps and are recording to a dual-layer DVD, then you may be able to store about 36-37 minutes of content per disk. A worst case scenario of DVCPRO50 with a combined data rate on the order of 57-58 Mbps to a single-layer disk would probably be as little as 9 minutes of content.
Is there a way or a program I should invest in to help me with this issue.
Applications like MPEG Streamclip (free) or QT Pro ($30) would allow you to segment your raw files as needed. Then your system software would be able to burn the segments to DVD as needed. (The specific work flow depends on what OS you are using.)
I used iDVD's One Step on one of my tapes but found that when I put that DVD in my MAC to import the footage into iMovie it wasn't compatible
This work flow creates MPEG2/PCM content for playback on commercial DVD players. All you want to do is store the already edit compatible file content as "data" to your DVDs. This raw data can then be copied back to your hard drive/imported to iMovie '08 as often as needed for editing whenever you wish.

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Best method for keeping iMovie projects long term?

I read through 30 pages of posts as I think this is a pretty basic question, but didn't see it directly addressed, so please forgive me...
Some of my movies are mammoth in size (as much as 30GB for 1 movie), which I've learned are due to iMovie handing onto full clip size even when only 10 seconds of it makes it into the final film...
I am starting to move the movies off the iMac onto an external HD, but don't know what is the most economical way to keep a copy digitally without sacrificing a lot of quality? Full Quality QT? as iDVD project instead of iMovie project?
Any suggestions are most appreciated. Thanks to all.
Message was edited by: toddleu

Hello Toddieu,
I am sure that there are better ways to store your projects, but I have struggled with the exact same question that you have and here are my solutions. I like iMovie 6, but I hate the "non-destructive" editing which makes your projects huge. So, this may seem strange, but I start my movies in iMovie 4. I import all of my raw footage and then do the first round of crude editing which, as you mention, sometimes reduces a 5 minute clip, down to a couple of 10 or 20 second clips. By the time I am done with this process, I usually reduce an hour's worth of "raw" footage down to around 30 to 40 minutes worth of "good stuff". Then I close iMovie 4, copy the movie file (just to be safe), and then open the copy using iMovie 6. When you do this, iMovie 6 will tell you that this movie will be permanently changed to the new format, which is what you want, so click OK. If the movie opens correctly, and everything looks good, then I continue editing the rest of my movie using iMovie 6 (fine cuts, transitions, titles, music, effects, chapters, etc). In the end, using this technique, an hour's worth of edited video uses about 12 gbs of HardDrive. I have several external HDs and I store all of my finished movies on these externals as iMovies (full quality). You don't want to save as DVD projects, because these are compressed files so you will lose some quality.
Like I said, I am sure there are easier ways to do this, and I am interested to hear what other's are doing, but this works for me.
Lincoln

Making a DVD with 3 iMovie projects

I am fairly new at making a DVD. I have iMovie 9.0.4 and am on a Mac OS X version 10.6.8.
My question is: I would like to make a DVD with 3 chapters.
     Chapter #1 would be an iMovie project (13 minutes)
     Chapter #2 would be an iMovie project ( 8 minutes)
     Chapter #3 would be an iMovie project (14 minutes)
I have all three of the movie projects completed.
At this time they are all seperate projects in iMovie.
They are the only projects that I have in imovie.
I hope to combine all three projects on one DVD and provide the DVD to classmates for a 50 year reunion.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Good or bad info. To be honest - I never use the SlideShow way - but it's well described in this forum and I tested it to be sure that it works. Problem I came up on was
• Black framing - One must select to not scale photos in SlideShow
• Bad sound - as I had to high level it resulted in severe distortion - Lowering it helped
So the problems can be handled - but in reality I rather do
• One movie containing all parts and Chapter Marks set to match. This too has a built in problem as one can not set Chapter Marks in transitions or within 2 sec from them (OR IN VERY BEGINNING OF MOVIE). But there is a way around this too.
• Export the combined movie as Full Quality QuickTime .mov
• Import this QT.mov and now You can set the Chapter Marks (except at very beginning = no need to do this - iDVD does this by it self)
And then I add each Chapter as a free movie too
This works greatly - BUT the Con in this case is that it takes x2 space on DVD. For material less than 60 min this is no problem - but for longer movies one has to be even more elaborate to fix it.
Good Luck !
Yours Bengt W

Make DVD out of iMovies project

Dear All,
I am not used to write item in the support communities because I usually find the correct way to use my mac mini and it works.
But sometimes I am somehow upset & angry about mac world.
I have a mac mini server 2011 (OS lion) with i7 dual core processor, 2.7GHz, 8Gb RAM, 2HD of 500 Go (where 300Go is freespave on each HD).
I imported for the first time video from my sony DR-PC350E (mini DV tape) to iMovies and enjoy making a project of about 1h20mn duration.
-> Now I am just looking at the way to burn this project on a dvd to share it with friends on my TV.
I tried the following commands:
1. finalize the project -> it did fail after 5 hours time with "Error 108".
2. export the project to Quicktime -> it did fail after 2 hours time with "Error 108".
3. export the project to Quicktime by selecting as target my second HD-> it did fail after 2 hours time with "Error 108".
4. export the project to iDVD -> it did not fail but send me ask me after 2 hours where is iDVD application located. And I realized then that iDVD is not installed on my mac mini!
Now i am wondering:
- why is iDVD not installed when I got with OS lion iPhoto, iMovies, Garageband etc....?
As far I see on internet, iDVD is somehow not supported anymore by apple but then why do they keep this option "export to iDVD" in iMovies ???
- why do I get this "error 108". As far I see on internet, this would be about space requirement or RAM requirement. This is a joke...8 Gb RAM should be more than enough.
I did not find any clear answer regarding this "error 108" on forums and also the status of iDVD application looks quite unclear to me.
After coming back home this evening, I may try the following:
- I just read on the net I should somehow try "export to media" and then get my movies on my HD.
Then by opening a DVD burner application (DVD creator for instance), I should then be able to create by DVD finally.
- Also I may try the cut my project of 1h20mn in about 10 projects of 8 min (I have about 10 chapters...).
If anyone has feedbacks or suggestions.....

Hi
There are much to this and I can only give a few suggestions at a time.
I imported for the first time video from my sony DR-PC350E (mini DV tape) to iMovies and enjoy making a project of about 1h20mn duration.
If You want max quality - then iMovie'08 to 11 are not the tool of choice as they all are unable to Export interlaced SD-video to any DVD en-coding program - but discard every second line resulting in less quality. I use:
• iMovie HD6 - or
• FinalCut Express or Pro
• FinalCut Pro-X is said to be able to deliver 100% too - AND it can burn DVDs !
If iMovie'08 - 11 is a must then I do
• Share to Medioa Briwser - and as Large (Not HD or other resolutions as this too degrades the result)
If there is no iDVD on Your Mac (and it's not on newer Macs as Apple discarded it) then You need a program that can do this.
Your Mac can burn CDs and DVDs - BUT DVD as Data-DVDs not as Video-DVDs - they need a program to be encoded and STRUCTURED as such.
• iDVD is part of the boxed version of iLife'11 and can only be bought outside Apple as on Amazon and e-bay
• DVD Studio pro - Part of FinalCut Studio Pro bundle - this to has expired and can only be bought second handed. (High price and tough learning Curve - but best ever done.)
• Roxio Toast™ - Not as elegant as iDVD - but has many other positive additions (I like it as 10-Pro incl BD-component) (now version 11)
• Burn - only free alternative I know of on internet. Very simple - Just for doing a plain Video-DVD
Burn http://www.digital-digest.com/software/Burn.html
only You can buy from Apple is
• FinalCut Pro-X which also can burn to DVD but without any nice themes.
AppleMan1958
You can also buy Compressor from Apple for $50 US. It will also create DVD and BluRay but without the nice themes.
Duration:
iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)
• Best Performances
(movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.
About double on DL DVDs.
Yours Bengt W

Disc Utility and Images for an iMovie project.

I am trying to make an image from an iMovie project so I can burn later to a DVD. When in Disc Utility ( DU ) I go to File - Disc Image From Folder, then I find the folder I created that contains my iMovie project. I click on that folder and it opens up showing my iMovie icon - the one with star on it- in another window, but the Star Icon is greyed out. Anyway, I proceeded making a disc image and read over my options, I choose just " read " and I also choose for a " CD/DVD Master " All proceeded and finished and the image was made. Then I burned that image using Disc Utility and ejected the DVD. When I re-inserted the DVD to try on DVD Player in mounted on the desktop and it was called " Movie Folder " (which was the folder I previously had named earlier) the DVD Player gave me the "stop symbol" and it said " Supported Disc Not Available " Should I have chosen a different option then CD/DVD master or is it because the iMovie Star icon was greyed out and not highlighted as the Folder itself was ? Hope this makes sense ! Eric

iDVD is not allowing me to burn a copy, whether I
export, drag and drop, whatever.
Have you tried setting iDVD to make a disk image file, instead of burning a DVD directly?
The iMovie goes in
fine to iDVD and then I burn ( try ) it almost
completes the process and the Blue Bar is full and
the Burn Wheel stops turning, then any movement of
the cursor after that point cause the Spinning Ball
and have to Force Quit. This happens whether I use
a iPhoto Slideshow or a iMovie project all 06.
Ive trashed the com.appleiDVD.plist thing and ran
Disc Utility and Re-Booted, but still the same
result.
How long are you waiting? iDVD is slow and may take several hours.
As far as the Disc Image, whats up there, are you
telling me I can only make a disc image in iDVD and
not iMovie? I just can't get a Finished project
onto a piece of Plastic not matter what I try ???
You can burn the output files created by iMovie but they won't play in a DVD player or with the DVD Player application. QuickTime Player should play them. DVD Player will only play a movie, from the hard drive or a DVD, after it has been processed into DVD format.

Convert photo in iphoto to put into iMovie project without affecting quality

Hi, hope someone can help. I am trying to put a photo from iPhoto into an iMovie project, but no matter what pixel change i try, whenever i put it into the iMovie project I get black bars each side of the photo and the photo doesn't fill up the full movie screen. Does anyone know if there's a way to do this without affecting the quality of the photo?

This happens because the image is a different aspect ratio from the movie, so make sure that you're cropping to the same dimensions.

How to save a final cut X project file to a dvd for future editing

How do I save a project to a dvd so that if I want that footage again sometime, I can open it in Final cut X and be able to work with it.
Is this a smart way to keep projects, or should I continue filling up externals with saved projects?
I am working with HD footage.
Some guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Rick

I think you should be able to just burn the Project and Event folders onto the disc, and then when you need to work with them, copy them back to a hard disc and carry on.

Chapters for multiple iMovie projects (movies) in a single iDVD project

I sent three iMovie '11 projects with chapter markers to Media Browser. I dragged each of the movies from the Media Browser into a single iDVD project. Dragging the first movie resulted in the creation of one button named "play movie" and one button named "scene selections". But dragging in the second and third movies resulted in only a "play movie" button for each movie--no "scene selections". Does iDVD not allow multiple movies to have sub-menus? Am I required to combine the three projects while still in iMovie (such that there is in effect only two levels possible, not three)? From the description of how to create a project in iDVD, I was under the impression that I could have three main buttons (Sydney, Matakohe, and Brisbane), and have each sporting chapters. It would change the organization substantially to have reduce the structure to only two levels. And I've seen nothing that says this cannot be done.
Message was edited by: Paul Bullen
Message was edited by: Paul Bullen

Thanks for your comments. It strikes me as exceedingly odd that a program that is made for creating projects out of multiple movies provides scene selections (chapters) for only the first movie added. I also find it odd that this little fact is not mentioned anywhere and that I am apparently the first person in history to want to have a sub-menu for each movie in a project. I have had many views on this discussion group and on the iMovie '11 discussion group, but yours is the only answer so far. Why does the manual or Help (for both iDVD and iMovie) not say "Oh, by the way, you can add all the movies you want, but don't expect to get any chapters for them" (it makes little sense to provide chapters for one movie, if you can't for the rest). And, in iMovie: "if you are planning to put more than one movie on a DVD, don't waste your time adding chapter markers. They can't be used in iDVD."
I have Toast Titanium 6. It's a pretty old version, but I was able to use it to use it for something recently. Thanks again.
Message was edited by: Paul Bullen
Message was edited by: Paul Bullen

Creating DVD's from imovie projects: quality issues

Currently have a HD project created in imovie, when burn to a DVD, using the best quality setting there is still a very noticeable decrease in quality compared to viewing in imovie. Any suggestions on maintaining the HD video quality

You need to use Toast to burn HD DVDs. iDVD cannot do this.
See this thread for more info: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10037719&#10037719

How do I create a standard show opener to import into future iMovie projects?

I'm wanting to create a short boilerplate "show opener" for a series of videos I'm making on iMovie and want to know the best way to a) create it independent of the actual movie and then b) import it into future movies at the beginning and end of each show.
Thank you.

There are several ways to do this.
The way I would recommend is to take a video that already has this show opening and closing. Select it in the Project Library view, and click FILE/DUPLICATE PROJECT.
Give it a name like Opening Tempate.
Then, when you make a new project, start by duplicating the template, give it a new name, and go from there.

Converting mp3 audio to txt for Captivate 4 project

Hi,
I'm working on a Captivate 4 project for which audio was recorded as an mp3 file. The audio consists of talking points for a training session. Instead of editing and splicing this large file, I was hoping to convert it to a txt file, that I could then add as slide notes and use the text-to-speech converter in Captivate 4. Does anyone know of a tool that converts mp3 files into txt files?
Thanks.

Hi there
I believe Adobe Soundbooth has that capability. You might also look at Dragon Naturally Speaking as well. I'm unaware of any free tools that will do it.
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
Captivate Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form
Adobe Certified Captivate Training
SorcerStone Blog
Captivate eBooks

How can I make a DVD of an iMovie project?

Why is there no mention of iDVD in the latest iMovie?

Because Apple have withdrawn it.
Why is there no iDVD on my new Mac? How do I get it and how do I install it?
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3673

Low quality of burned DVD even if I drag&drop iMovie project into iDVD

Hi all,
I've a iMovie HD project that I want to burn via iDVD (7.0.4).
If I click "Share with iDVD" the quality of the resultung video (which is burned to DVD) is rather poor. As I've read within this discussions, the preferred way is to close iMovie and "drag and drop" the iMovie project into iDVD.
With this way, iDVD (instead of iMovie) will render the movie, which should give a video with far more quality.
Unfortunately, the burned DVD with the "drag and drop" method has the same low quality as the video with "Share with iDVD".
I've done a little research and noticed that the "shared movie" for iDVD (iMovie project->Show package Contents->Shared Movies->iDVD) for a 1:10 video has a filesize of only 32kb!
Is there any way to set the "export" parameters for this "shared movie" (it is a quicktime file)?
The quality of the completed DVD is acceptable if I export the iMovie project to "DV stream" an import this stream into iDVD. But in this case I lose all my chapter markers of the movie ..
Is there any way to export the movie from iMovie HD and keep all the chapter markers for iDVD?
Importing the iMovie HD project into iMovie 08/09 is not an option, as I lose the chapter markers also ..
Thanks in advice,
Kind regards.

Hi,
the iMovie project was created as "DV" project and I imported DV PAL clips. The iDVD preferences are also PAL (25fps) and the quality setting is "professional quality".
I've also tried the setting "best performance" within iDVD (as suggested within this forum), but with the same poor result.
I can see within the iDVD "project info" that iDVD will use "mymovie.mov" within the "Shared Movies->iDVD" of the iMovie project (Show package contents).
As this converted movie is of low quality, I think this is the root of evil.
If I export the movie from iMovie with "Export as DV stream" and import this converted movie into iDVD the quality is ok - but I lose the chapter markers ..
Is there any way to keep the chapter markers?
Kind regards.

?Optimal Photoshop settings for slideshow-iMovie then iDVD

I know that there are many posts about file size and pixel size for optimizing photos prior to importing into iMovie or iDVD. I have read many of them, including many of them by Karl Petersen, but have been disappointed by the quality of the photos when viewed on the final DVD on my television. The problem I have it that almost ALL of my photos are portrait style and not landscape. A lot of the discussions center around avoiding pillarboxes, which I cannot avoid with vertical pictures
All of the photos are shot RAW on a Nikon D70 and imported into Photoshop.
Can anyone make recommendations on the optimal photoshop settings for creating the files to import for a slideshow in iDVD.
Specifically, in Photoshop, for vertically oriented pictures, what would be the recommendation for:
1) File size and best way to control that in Photoshop. Should I increase the file size on the original RAW image import? (I currently use the 2000x3008 6MP default)
2) Should each photo be cropped to an exact size or can I keep a specific aspect ratio instead?
3) Should I use a pixel aspect ratio other than normal? (These will all be viewed in the US )
4) Should the photos be imported into iMovie first and go through KB (even with no zooming) or can they go into iDVD?
Many Thanks!!!
Dual 1.42 MHz G4, 2 GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.7) iMovieHD 6.0.2, iDVD 6.0.2

Since posting the test I suggested you run, Alesse, I've done some testing of my own, with some interesting results. They aren't going to help you much, I'm afraid, but they might shed some light on the whole process of making slideshows.
I do everything I can to maximize image quality in iMovie slideshows. Then I've wondered what affect iDVD has on the result.
So today I played the same slideshow from three sources. One version from the camera, one version from iDVD and one version from a Digital Video Recorder (DVR).
First I created a slideshow where the same photos were imported four different ways, each as a four 4-second clip. The test used rather simple photos, 1600x1200 jpegs, about 500k each, from an old Nikon Coolpix 950.
The images were delivered to the iMovie four ways:
1) I imported the sequence of images into QuickTime Player, then saved that as two DV streams, one Progressive and one Interlaced. These were dropped into the Media folder as described above. iMovie "adopted" them when I re-opened the project. (They were NOT imported by iMovie.)
2) I imported the same images with Ken Burns ON (but with no animation); and
3) I imported the same images with Ken Burns OFF.
The four clips of each image were arranged side-by-side on the Timeline, so I could easily compare their quality while played on the TV.
(The images were selected to include those that are easy to encode by iDVD and images difficult to encode — having lots of high-contrast lines like roof lines, lap-siding on buildings, telephone lines, the kind of content that tends to acquire the "jaggies". I avoided the bug where iMovie adds jaggies if you grant it permission to render UNrendered images as you export the project to iDVD or to the camera.)
I wanted to compare the quality of three kinds of slideshows:
1) the slideshow played from the camera;
2) the slideshow burned by iDVD and
3) the slideshow burned by a standalone DVR.
To make the three slideshows, I did this:
1) used iDVD to burn a DVD of the iMovie project;
2) exported the iMovie slideshow project back to the camera; and
3) connected the camera to a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and burned a DVD on the DVR. This was so I could compare the quality of iDVD to a DVR recording.
Then I connected the camera to the TV so I could compare it, in turn, to each of the DVDs. Because each image played for a total of 16 seconds, I was able to play both the DVD and the camera simultaneously and switch the TV back and forth between the two inputs to compare the image quality of the camera to a DVD.
RESULT
• The camera image was superior in all respects to both the DVDs, as one would expect. Considerably better. There were virtually no jaggies. Subtler colors. Less contrast. iMovie 6 was obviously delivering the goods. Great quality, on every clip.
• At first I thought the DVR image was better than the iDVD image, but reconsidered that later. Each had its own positive qualities. There was little difference. Each was slightly better in some respects than the other, worse in others. It was basically a wash. Both had about the same amount of jaggies, sometimes in different places.
• Another interesting result was that all the clips — from all four sources — played basically the same on the camera and on the two DVDs. There was very little difference among the four import methods. (I expected more difference.)
• There WAS an obvious difference among clips played in iMovie, however. The DV stream exported as a DV Progressive movie displayed with better quality in iMovie itself. The difference wasn't huge, but it was sharper, more "life-like".
• It is obvious that encoding an iMovie project to the MPEG-2 format used by a DVD — whether by iDVD or by a DVR — sacrifices quality. You won't notice it much on some images — flowers, faces, landscapes — but you will see jaggies on others.
• When the test was over, I watched a DVD slideshow of the same images I had burned a few weeks ago containing three iMovie widescreen formats: DV Widescreen, 720p, and 1080i. It was a close call, but I think they were all slightly better than the DV slideshow. Some images, especially, were better.
CONCLUSIONS
If you want the best playback quality possible, use the camcorder to play the slideshow on the TV, not a DVD.
To avoid the jaggies, it may be necessary to avoid certain photos. It's hard to tell which those are until you play the DVD on a TV. Plan to burn a DVD, then purge the images that acquire bad jaggies and burn it again.
Softening the TV picture can help. My TV offers a tremendous range of sharpness, a feature common to new TVs.
• My guess is that until we can burn Hi-Def DVDs, our huger and huger TVs are going to make the problem of DVD quality worser and worser. My slideshows would probably all look great on yesterday's "huge" 20" TV.
• I don't have DVD Studio Pro to test. Perhaps someone can compare that too?
Anyway, I hope something here helps.
Karl

IMovie project to DVD without iDVD?

I'm a total newbie to iMovie and iDVD (using v. 4 of both). I'm trying to help my son get a simple 3-minute iMovie project onto a DVD for a school project. Teacher will play the DVD on a TV for whole class. My question is do I have to go through iDVD to burn a DVD that will play on a TV? Is there anyway to "Share" it straight out of iMovie since I don't need any fancy openings etc.?
To let you know what I've already tried: I "shared" the project out of iMovie as a Full Quality DV and then burned that to a DV+R disk just using the disk utility. My home DVD player said "error: incompatible disk". After reading these forums I see a DVD-R is recommended, and it's better to burn through Toast (I have v.6). If I make those two changes will I be successful?
Thanks for any help for a harried mom.
LeeAnn
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.8)

Hi LeeAnn,
welcome to the  board
as Matthew and Beverly wrote:
you need an "author" tool to create a videoDVD...
what you've done with Disk Utility is a dataDVD - which is, for sure, not readable for a DVDstandalone... (it is not a computer... just a player)
* in iDVD (which is an authoring, encoding and burning app) you can modify the themes down to the ground - in result, you are able to create a black screen with a single word "start"... not-fancy enough?
* Toast allows also authoring, but has not as many options as iDVD to create non-themes dvds.... depending on the Toast version, you can create autostart-dvds - that is without any menu... (you can accomplishh that with iDVD5/6...)
* there are some free tools on the market for creating DVDs, but this is a painstaking process... not recommended for the average user...
I would use iDVD...

Converting camcorder footage to DVD for future iMovie projects

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